


débauché

by moonandtime123



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Boys In Love, Kissing, Love, M/M, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2019-06-17 13:17:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15462225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonandtime123/pseuds/moonandtime123
Summary: "I am not sure," he murmurs thickly.  "I am not sure how to be without this."Thoughts on their last night in Rome.





	1. This Cannot Be All We Get

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "As much as I understand how there is beauty in having something like we do for so little the amount of time that we did, I cannot possibly accept this ending without bludgeoning myself bloody in the fight against it."

    The night air is thick with humidity that crawls along the lining of my shirt, slicking the skin underneath it with a fine sheen of sweat. My head spins lightly, surpassing tipsy only by an inch and beginning to border on full blown drunk. God, how I don’t mind the dizziness so long as I can be with him, entangled limbs and shadows being cast down on us both from the street lamps above.  
   

    Our few days in Rome have been peppered with residential visits, drinking and food that reminds me of how I can never love anything the way I love Italy. Oliver and I have wandered through the cobblestone streets in hopes of finding paths off the more tourist-inclined agendas, places where we could sneak kisses and touches that left us fumbling to recover in enough time to rejoin the masses. We duck down too many alleyways to count, tugging each other by the hand or collar of the shirt, grinning like hyenas before hungrily capturing one another in embraces that leave us far more heated than we have any control over. I don’t remember every wanting anything in my life like I want him, as if there is only one singular purpose for my soul and it is to spend my days following behind him like a lovesick puppy, following him around this beautiful city and this life; which would become the most beautiful thing of all if we could spend it side by side.

    It is the middle of the night, and the people we had eaten dinner with are drifting away in twos and threes, singing slurred songs in several different languages while bidding Oliver a safe journey home. Their solemn goodbyes follow us as we walk towards a separate, less populated direction. As soon as the last person is out of sight, Oliver pulls my hand into his own like he had a few nights ago when I was sick in the square, our intertwined fingers press tightly to his chest; half against his shirt, half pressed into bare skin and chest hair. I want nothing more than to teleport us both to our hotel room, rewind the time a few days and set it on perpetual repeat so that our time together will spin, never-ending. I haven’t let myself think about our imminent separation, but the loopholes I have examined in order to delay the inevitable have begun to dawn on me in large doses of desperation. As much as I understand how there is beauty in having something like we do for so little the amount of time that we did, I cannot possibly accept this ending without bludgeoning myself bloody in the fight against it.

    “Hey,” Oliver’s low timbre resonates from his chest to the tips of my fingers, pulling me from my thoughts of how I can possibly harbor him for myself, keep him with me for the rest of my life and his. “If your head was in Rome, I am sure it would not be quite as secretive as you are being right now.” His voice suggests that he is in jest, but the look in his eyes is pleading, not wanting me to waste away our last bits of time together on such primitive thoughts as the ones I have been misplaced in.

    I smile gently at him, an apology. We wander further for some minutes in silence, dense with the insensitivity of time upon us, as if the little while we have spent together has been lived in such relative slow motion that, as the end of Oliver and I draws near, it needs to fast forward in order to realign with the actual hour at hand. We have been left scrambling to find seconds that are no longer available to us, and in the hope that there might still be some hiding somewhere, have yet to cease the attempt of hunting them down.  
  
    I look at Oliver. I know he can sense what I am thinking, because it is what troubles him as well. Many times this summer, I have been so unsure of myself, so unsure of who I can become or who I could resemble. With him, I have found not only myself, but myself as he is. Myself as he sees me: a lively 17 year old with long limbs, curly hair and an affinity for music. I have seen my eyes through his and thought them beautiful. I have tasted myself on his lips and want little more than for the flavor to stay on my tongue evermore. I want him and I want myself, and that seems enough of an answer to leave me feeling semi-satisfied, despite the knowledge that I can never truly own him as he will always possess me. He makes me feel wanted, so much so, that I want myself. I have never felt this way, and am sure I will never feel so again.

    At once overcome with longing, I skid to a stop in my tracks, an abrupt ceasing that yanks slightly on Oliver’s arm and brings him to a halt as well. For a moment, words elude me and I stand before him, my mouth gaping open and closed like a fish breathing underwater. “I,” I start, unable to see a possible beginning or end to what I wish to say to him. “I don’t want you to go,” I finally relent.

    And there it is. The truth I am sure I have been hiding not only from him, but from myself in fear of it tearing my heart to pieces before I have the chance to be with him, truly be with him. I have, from the very moment he closed the taxi door upon arriving at our villa, been unwilling to relinquish any hold he would place upon my life, any claim he had upon my heart.

    The way Oliver stares at me makes my stomach flip, desire so clearly written there. Wide eyes which make me sure he doesn’t want to go, doesn’t want to let me go. There is nowhere else I want to be, other than in his arms. I take a few steps towards him with my hands outstretched, trying to offer…anything. They find and rest on his hips, his lifting to cup my cheeks in his palms. My eyes travel from where they are level at his chin up to his mouth, a piece of him I covet like treasure; his lips are finer than gold. His hands rotate to the back of my neck and pull me to him, not for a kiss, but to rest our foreheads together. I let my hand come up to grip his wrist, squeezing tight enough to feel his pulse beat. I think about how this night can become the beat of both our hearts. _Buh bum, buh bum, buh bum_. He inhales sharply and presses a quick kiss to my temple before pulling away. “Let’s get back to the hotel.”

    We arrive there shortly after I am, the receptionist in the lobby glancing from a novel he’d been reading for only a brief nod directed at us before diving back in. Oliver has refused to let go of my hand, damn what anyone this time of night thought. Most people we encounter don’t even bat an eye. But I tire quickly of thinking about what everyone else thinks. I am so tired of what I have been thinking. I want Oliver to make me forget to think, make me forget anything that matters because he is all that does. I grasp his hand as if it is my lifeline and hold on as he leads us into the elevator where we face each other.

    God, he is beautiful. Almost ethereal. I imagine back in the 40’s, he would’ve made quite a bourgeoisie movie star, like my mother’s nickname for him. Blonde hair that was sandy when he first arrived now shone like the sun hung high in the middle of the day. His skin had become a deep, rich brown; making it hard to decipher if he was some devastating, faraway prince with a family one wished to meet in order to discover if they were similarly as breathtaking. His eyes seem black today, but I know the blue in them like I know everything else about him: I have obsessed over them unendingly for the past six weeks.

    With the elevator doors closing, I find the black in his eyes to disarm me, but in a way that tempts me to collapse into him as if his body is the case for my soul. I wonder for a moment if there is anything I should say to him. If I should ask him to come back for the winter holidays. If I should ask him to stay here, to not get on that plane tomorrow. I long to be more selfish in my life than I have ever been. I want to beg him to drop everything that is important back in America, to give up the idea of becoming a tenured professor at Columbia, to drop his friends his family. I am weak with the desire for him to stay. To stay with me.

    But his eyes are on me, raking over my body savagely, as if committing everything he sees to memory; making heat rise up my neck and into my cheeks before I discover I can’t say anything. I can’t utter a sound. And so, I say nothing. Instead, I lung forward to take his face into my hands and drag his mouth to mine.  
We collide firmly against the far wall close to where Oliver had been standing, our bodies sinking together line for line. His mouth moves fiercely against mine, the hesitation that had been present at the start of our affair now nonexistent, as if he some time ago had an epiphany that it was futile to resist something like this. The intoxicating season we have spent swimming and sunbathing in B. follows our every action, as if each of these movements can carry the memories of our sunny days woven together. I feel the sun on my skin through Oliver’s hands tracing up my waist and into my hair; mine moving down his chest to wrap around his torso, locking my fingers together on the other wrist to eliminate any space between our bodies. I feel Monet’s Berm as Oliver tilts my jaw with his own and begins to nip at my neck while I lean heavily against him. I can feel the pressure of gravity on us as the elevator rises and recognize that we will soon have to separate in order to get to our room. It dawns on me that tonight is my last night to claim him. To devour him and be devoured by him in return, and that if anyone has trouble with me kissing and stumbling along the hotel hallway with a human who has helped me connect to my own humanity; carnal, vicious and ultimately giving, then they frankly can go fuck themselves.

    I gain some bravery at my newfound apathetic view to what the world thinks. Anyone who is not me, is not Oliver, does not have two cents to throw in on any matter regarding us. It should have always been as such, but I find I am late to catch up to it, and as the elevator rattles along its course, I feel Oliver start to loosen his hold on me. I suddenly feel urgent, like there cannot be one moment of space between our bodies or I will begin to slowly decompose, as if buried alive in some coffin or foresight, which is entombed in too long, will be the very end of my existence. So, instead, as the elevator nears our floor, I drop unceremoniously from indulging in Oliver’s mouth to worship at his knees.

    “ _Elio_ ,” Oliver hisses in mild-protest, his hands slapping flat against the elevator walls as I hurriedly unclasp the button of his shorts and unzip the zipper. We have both taken to not wearing any underwear, keen on fantasizing about each other in spare moments and breathing in desire like it is carbon monoxide, as well as to save time in desperate moments like this we so commonly have. I am grateful for it, as Oliver lunges for the button to halt the elevator in its tracks and I obediently follow with my mouth.

    Oliver falters back to the wall with a gasp as the elevator putters to a stop, the doors remaining closed. My knees dig into the ground, making me feel devout, like there is no purpose more worthy of my complete and utter surrender than the man who stands (albeit on wobbly legs) in front of me. I wade slowly into pleasuring him with my mouth and hands, because his pleasure is my own and I crave taking this time. Even the desperation I carry for him in my lungs, which looms overhead like a stray vulture in the desert aching for my last breath, cannot save me from the all-encompassing burn I feel whenever I am with him. Nothing can cease the motions I am making to ignite his entire body in flames as I work my tongue over and around him languorously, begging with each lick and suck, _don’t you forget this, Oliver. Let this feeling be seared into your skin as long as we both shall live. Because as you live, so do I; and I can never forget how it feels to be loved just like this, but by you._

    I place my palm low on his torso, smoothing it upwards, sliding underneath the loose T-shirt and into his smattering of chest hair. He heaves as if running a great distance, and I reminisce on the mornings we jogged together in B. It is as though nothing has changed between us, other than our choice of cardio. As always, we were friends before lovers. And god, I cherish him as my friend. Cherish the kind smiles he gives when paying close attention to a tale animatedly retold. The way he laughs when caught unawares, with his golden head thrown back to let out a roar of guffaws fit to shake the ground. I am unutterably devoted to the selfish, confident version of Oliver; the one who spouts intellectual tidbits throughout these last few days, the fierce and prevailing one present in my bed each night. I want him in every color, every flavor. A replica of each fatal flaw or fallacy to be copied down exactly as it is, so that when he is gone, I can rebuild him myself like an automaton; convincing me of his existent presence here, that I will never be able to recall if, how, or when he has ever actually left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> re-edit of this done, because I am proud of this writing, plus I am trying to knock out some more chapters! come follow me on tumblr @themoonandtime, don't be afraid to say hello!!!


	2. O Me, O Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “He is the chink in my armor. His every sentence, every bend and curve.”

    Somehow, we make it back to our hotel room and into the privacy we have craved so badly to obtain.  I desperately wanted to finish him off in the elevator, but soon after I had begun my worship, he pulled me up by the collar of my shirt into a fierce kiss, our lips brushing with the words, “Our room.   _ Now _ .”

    It is a blur to me, just like all these weeks together have been.  I cling tightly to our memories in hope that during these following months without him, I will be able to fold into them to provide a soothing balm for heartache, the kind that is sure to transform into a prolonged sort-of torture at the continued recognition of his absence.  I remember when I had contemplated, after the first night we spent together, whether I would look upon the night with shame, flaring and vile as it can get. Or with disinterest, as though having his sweat-slicked body melded to my own was no more than a shrug of the shoulders.  I wonder how I could have thought myself so able to resist him, so impervious to his American charms and intelligence, where I, both then and now, find myself to be an addict of the worst kind. 

    He is the chink in my armor.  His every sentence, every bend and curve. 

    All of Oliver’s mannerisms and movements have become an answer key to what I am certain will be an exam of the heart received immediately following his departure.  I feast upon each and every detail, as though he is no longer on this planet, but floating in space, out towards the most distant star from me. I wish to paint him.  I want to write him limericks and haikus and sonnets and rhapsodies. I can compose shows worthy of the finest opera houses, where he has no choice but to come and listen; if only for the sake of the title being his own name, which in turn is my name as well.    

    With my back to our hotel door, I study him as he glides about our room, completely oblivious to the grace of his own motions.  How I desire to move like he does, even with the most mundane of actions.  _ Lamp, on.  Swig of water, glance at me.   _ I can feel him in my chest, as desperate to have me as I am dying to have him, but wishing to stall in order for the end not to come any closer than absolutely necessary.  I wish for us to have the stamina required in order to make love for the rest of our lives, so as not to feel the dehydration and hunger for one another’s bodies ever again.  I never want to need him again, because I want to have him already. I want him for myself and only myself.

     _I will no longer need you,_ I think,  _ if I have you. _

    I am so lost in the deliberation of stopping time, I fail to see the expressions dancing across his face.  Blinking a bit to resume my focus, I find a solitary tear running down his cheek for a moment before it is swiped with his palm, resting in a clenched fist at his side.  Before I am conscious of my own movements, I have taken three strides across our room to reach him, capturing his hand in both of mine and bringing my mouth to the palm. I let my tongue trail slowly along its length to taste the remnants of his sorrow, salty and so thoroughly destructive, I feel as though I may drown in it.

    Oliver brings the hand I am not holding hostage to my chest, pressing a subtle and soft beat in time with what lay underneath ( _ buh bum buh bum); _ his lips pressed in an indecipherable line.  Breathing in his air, I sway slightly from the sheer intoxication of just being this close to him.  Some symptoms can never truly fade, I suppose, as I press my open mouth against the center of his hand. 

    He clears his throat gently as I return my eyes to his.  “I am not sure,” he murmurs thickly. “I am not sure how to be without this.”  His fingers go from tapping to smearing his entire palm in the opening of my shirt, passing over my nipples.  Though I am lost to the sensation of it, I cannot tear my eyes from his face. I can’t live through his sadness, as I am so enveloped in my own.  His, separate from mine, seems more devastating and makes me feel as if there is somehow more casualties involved. Oliver has always felt a twinge of responsibility (which I assume can from what he saw as his ‘advanced years’ to mine) to save me from paying in any way for what our relationship could cost.  Ever the hero, I knew he wished for little else than to forever protect me from pain.

    My hands free his and, seemingly of their own accord, roam up his body to tangle in his hair.  “ I think we will never be without this,” I breath, the truth of the statement catching me off guard.  He heaves a sign, and whether it is one of contentment of dissatisfaction, I will never know. I press on the base of his neck gently, causing his head to tilt backwards and lean in to press a kiss on the underside of his jaw.  His hands rest loosely on my hips as I continue my ministrations, feasting on his skin as if it is manna from heaven.

    I feel his jaw shift underneath my lips, as though he wishes to speak, but I am no longer in need of words.  There are too many things that have gone unsaid between us, things which seem too far gone to bring back to the surface just now.  I still my movements and pull away to look at him, his face still delicately held between my hands. The Oliver I find has his eyes closed tightly, tension wrinkled in his forehead with such an expression of anguish, I feel it ignite the ache in my chest with a brutal force of a similar nature, my body taking this as its cue to trigger tears. 

    “No,” Oliver whispers upon opening his eyes to find tears trailing down my cheeks in ones and twos.  He swipes at them with his thumbs, my sweet protector attempting to fend off attacks from our common enemy.  “Don’t cry, Elio.”

    I nod in his hands, dropping my head heavily against his chest as if I can gain back some of my former composure just by breathing closer to his heart.  “’Don’t cry, Elio,’” I recite back, as much for the opportunity to call him by my own name as to do what he said. I tug at his loose shirt to fit his body back to mine, letting his chin rest on the crown of my head and my arms wrap around his lean frame.  I squeeze once to hear his breath hitch before unwinding my limbs, just enough to trade for the slow slide of fingertips underneath his shirt. 

    I map out the planes of burning, silky flesh at the dip in his lower back, half-tempted to dig my nails in and rouse the types of scars that can last a lifetime.  It will be a piece of me always marring him to the vision of others, not because I wish for him to be undesirable, but because I know how truly desirable he is to all.  I want for someone with a hunger like mine to undress him slowly, and on scorching summer nights like our here in Rome, to study the marks and him so thoroughly, they will become the only other person to understand the impulse to claim him as I have.  So, when Oliver would shrug off questions like  _ who  _ or  _ why _ , they will experience him for mere moments, whereas I will possess him for all of time.       

    In the end, I resist the urge, because I know; come the time of fallen leaves and snow, neither of us can leave this summer without scars.

    I feel as though his body is an extension of mine, as if each piece I let my hands linger on are parts of what I already know so well.  Lifting my head, I press my lips to his chest, open-mouthed kisses where I suck the skin gently into my mouth before teasing my tongue over the collarbones protruding out of his shirt.  His fingers find the button my mine and begin to undo them, one after the other in succession, until I have to step backward to shrug the rest of the way out.

    We undress each other with the thought at the forefront of each our minds:  _ this could be the last time we ever do this _ .  Each crease of fabric, each subtle brush of knuckles near sensitive areas become moments I wish to assign catalogue cards to in the library of my mind.  I long for the ability to return to these moments with a perfect remembrance of how they feel, to hone my skills for recalling the past accurately enough to induce it into my present.  Can acceptance ever come at the thought of losing this?

    As easy as my shirt had puddled at my feet, Oliver’s hands deftly unzip and discard my trousers as well.  Nothing left on my skin other than Oliver’s eyes (which he takes his time studying me with) from head to toe and lingering on some places in between.  I find us to be keen observers of each other’s physical anatomy, where we can spend hours mapping out and sketching even the tiniest of birthmarks, the smallest of freckles.  I feel my entire body warm under his gaze as he lets it express such a vulnerable desire for me. A blush spreads over me, smoothing over my chest and neck before blooming into rapid heartbeats, my lips opening with a familiar desperation for both some air and him. 

    Soon enough, we are woven together in a knot naked limbs, his thigh caged between mine to brush where I ache most for his touch.  His mouth moves softly against mine, a swift exodus of air coming from my lungs and drafting into our mouths with a soft  _ whoosh. _  If one kiss ends, another begins so quickly, I wonder if I am responding at all or simply holding on for dear life.  With a delicate pull of his hands, I am molded into the pores of his skin, his hips pressing into mine. I can feel the sweat beading there, the beat of his heart throbbing on every spot I place my tongue.  I feel that we have become the very first organisms to exist in this lengthy, fell swoop of time. We are comprised of many parts, though unable to divvy them equally for fear of miscalculation. He is essential to my survival and I to his.  We are becoming invariably dependent on each other for living, that soon, an entire species may count on us to provide the same. We are two halves of a whole, compacted together so tightly that our souls diverge, and upon the command to separate, will become ghosts threatening to plague those with hearts racing and falling into beds as we have.  It is as if we are birds without the ability to fly and, when the desire to do so wells up within hearts as fierce as ours, are ones who can finally take to the sky.

    It is clear to me that no matter how hard I wish for our last night to never end, time won’t always listen to the pleas of loves whose hearts are near their breaking point.  I feel panic spreading beneath my skin, skirting across every inch of nerves, muscles and fibers with an electricity that borders on pain, as it is born of pain itself. “ _ Oliver, _ ” I gasp as he pushes us over and onto the hotel bed, his mouth leaving mine for a moment to attach to my pulse point, crawling his beautiful body on top of mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hi to me @themoonandtime on tumblr, more posting will eventually be done on this!


	3. Prepare for Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A change in perspective. 
> 
> "Here I am, here he is, and gods help me. I am Icarus flying too close to the sun."

    I am awake long before the sky gently brightens with the low rising sun.  After making love several slow and beautiful times, the alcohol and exhaustion has overcome Elio; rendering him a soft shadow of sleep basking in the after effects of our combined bliss.  God, I envy his ability to sleep. Drunk or not, sleep is something that will never come easily to me. Ever since I was a child, sleep evaded me due to nightmarish ghouls or villains kids told tales of at school.  Now, as an adult, I fight demons of a different kind, but still ones that never seem to disappear with the imminent arrival of day. 

    I am so, so vulnerable here, chain smoking off our petit hotel balcony, with demons parading around my head like it is Carneval.  Looking back on my preparations for Italy six and a half weeks ago, there had been little idea of pursuing endeavors of any kind outside of my work and potentially playing a few hands of poker.  I was too elated to possibly worry about anything other than lying in the sun, working on my manuscript, and chatting animatedly with Professor Perlman about my findings on Heraclitus. I was aware that he had a son, but 17 years seemed so young, and millenniums from the person I am now.  I was so sure the son would be nothing of notable consequence, that he and I would get along well enough without getting in each other's way. 

    But from the moment I met Elio, held and shaken his hand, I had been one step behind and invariably tripping over myself in an attempt to catch up.  He had been dressed for the intensity of the summer heat, a small patch of perspiration clinging to the dark curls framing his face. I had felt my heart stutter slightly as I looked curiously into Elio’s face; the youth and beauty that lay there so abundant, words could not convey at the time what my heart longed to say to him. “ _ Someone, in some future time _ ,” my mind had supplied a fragmented line of Sappho’s, disarmed entirely at the sight of Elio’s small, shy smile.   _ “Someone, in some future time, will think of us _ .”

    I start from my memories at the sound of Elio mumbling softly on our bed.  I dab the cigarette I have been sipping on against the brass balcony railing, as if the smoke was what roused him.  Instead, I turn to find him splayed on his stomach and still fast asleep, his rustling resulting in the blanket pooling near his knees.  In the light that drifts through our balcony doors, he is the loveliest thing I have ever seen. His smooth, tanned skin makes feel reverent, as if I am standing in the singular most sacred room I have ever been in.  The subject of my worship being something (rather,  _ someone _ ) I could not have conjured up myself.  I wish to completely abandon my novel on Heraclitus, to write a million lines on the freckles decorating the plane of Elio’s back, sloping between the indents of his spine and littering up along the sharp lines of his shoulder blades.  Such constellations I could chart against the night sky. 

    It goes without saying that I love him.  In a mere couple of weeks, the shame I have felt previously in my life at the longing for another man's body against my own seems to have dissipated in a cloud of desperation for him; a kind of fierce devotion that ignites a fire in my soul I will gladly burn alive for.  Devotion birthed only when in the presence of a fast approaching departure date, and one that is solely mine to blame. It will soon wrench me back into the reality I've worked so tirelessly to create for myself, and now feel that, upon returning, will greet me as a stranger never before encountered.  

    How can I possibly return myself to a life that no longer seems to fit?  I have spent such amounts of time cultivating myself, shaping my intelligence with lectures and novels and conversations.  Spent so many years plastering personalities together to form a solid mask I can take on and off at will, because there are times when it is so much easier to seem completely cast from stone than as I truly am; entirely, devastatingly and wholly breakable.  

    “Oliver,” Elio startles me out of my stupor, a croaked whisper slicing through the heavy silence of the early morning.  He is on his side now and rubbing at his eyes.  _ Fuck _ , I think, my throat contricting.   _ Here I am, here he is, and gods help me.  I am Icarus flying too close to the sun.  _ “What time is it?”  He swings his legs over the side of the bed and stands drowsily, the alcohol still rendering him a little off balance.  He makes his way over to where I have set up shop in my thoughts, my limbs dwarfing the small armchair the hotel room had provided near the balcony windows.  I let myself look at him, attempting to commit the movements of his body to memory; not just for the sake of them being beautiful, but for them being entirely  _ his _ .  Everything he ever does in his lifetime, I want to somehow see as  a fly on the wall, because I can’t bear the thought of him changing.  Can’t bear the thought of him changing so much so that one day I may pass him by in some other world without recognizing it.  Or what if he will not recognize me some years ahead? What if Elio, the moment I step onto the plane, removes me from his being and, upon encountering me again in some distant place one day, stares blankly at me as I call him by my name?

    Elio notices my turmoil and, without words or a moment of self-consciousness at his own bared body, drapes his naked skin onto my own.  A knee on each side of my thighs and chest to chest, Elio’s hands tangle in my hair as he pulls just enough to tilt my eyes to his.  _ How can you hide from what never goes away?   _ Cupping my face, he traces lightly up my cheekbones to my eyelids, where he gently closes them with a soft stroke of his thumbs.  “None of that,” he softly admonishes, his voice still thick with sleep. His body is all I can focus on, all I can hold onto with the darkness he has given me permission to take shelter safely inside of.  I run my hands up his thighs and stop to thumb at the juncture of his hips, my head filled endlessly with the way Elio breathes his own name in times of ecstasy.  _ Elioelioelioelioelioelio.   _ I am taken out of my trance as Elio moans my own name instead.  When I open my eyes, his are already there, open and so lovely in the early morning sunshine that my breath catches.  He is staring at me with a heavy-lidded gaze, which I glimpse for only a moment before he leans in swiftly to press his lips to mine.  

    I am so greedy for his kisses, taking one after the other with such attentiveness, I could reenact it through memory alone.  I wrap one hand around the back of his neck and loop my entire arm around his waist to press his torso to mine. There is minor fumbling on both our sides, and then the scorching press of my body into his.  We are making love again, and Elio whimpers brokenly into the dip of my collarbone before biting down to muffle it. 

    “ _ Yes,”  _ I moan deeply, leaning my head back against the armchair as Elio flexes his hips forward.  I move our chests away from each other gently, just enough to get a full glimpse of the beauty on top of me; his breathing shaky as it transcends in and out of his lungs.  Even with our attempts back and forth to reassure each other, assuage each other’s sorrow, it has surpassed any comfort entirely; so, I am not surprised when tears fill up and spill over Elio’s cheeks.  

    I am not surprised when they rain down mine.  Elio laughs gently upon seeing our mirrored stages of arousal and heartbreak, and I thank him for it.  It enables me to smile in the presence of overwhelming emotions, a simultaneous pleasure and pain that breaks me down to the very simplest form of being.  I am no longer a man, no longer human at all. I am a fluid image that can only breathe when with him, and turns to ash without. I am a firestorm, an echo of a people long ago destroyed by eruptions and tsunamis and earthquakes; I am the fall of the very city we stand in.  

    We have consumed each other entirely, not caring to brace against the onslaught of a battle neither of us can win.  We will go through this life, having built back the form of our bodies, of our minds. We will nod at meaningful things and laugh at the humorous, but we will never be the same again; because the moment we met will be marked in eternity as the time our parallel lives began, a blip in the timeline that created millions of versions of ourselves who never have, and never will, learn to say goodbye.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter, but one I love nonetheless. Hopefully you do too! I am still writing, so stay tuned. Come hang with me on tumblr @themoonandtime!!


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